I didn"t end up asking, because Xiao Ning took away my phone.

When we paused for breath I asked him if it had been five minutes yet. He said no, then kissed me again. Later I just forgot about it. Why worry so much about it? Anyway, it was enough that Xiao Ning liked me.

Considering that Xiao Ning"s skills weren"t high enough, he had to remain a virgin before formally becoming a Celestial Master. And my students hadn"t all transcended yet, so I still needed the force of pure Yang blood. So we stopped our intimacy at the neck. We didn"t even give each other a helping hand. It was extremely frustrating.

But Xiao Ning was quite satisfied. He insisted on lying on my lap and holding down my legs with his hands, saying that I wasn"t to stand up without his permission. Today he was absolutely going to keep lying there!

I finally got my phone back. At midnight I sent Princ.i.p.al Zhang a message: Princ.i.p.al, are you fully charged today?

Fully!

It seemed that the phone being fully charged had put Princ.i.p.al Zhang in a good mood. It was the first time I"d seen her use an exclamation mark.

I briefly told her what had happened with Xiao Duan. Princ.i.p.al Zhang replied: Sect Leader Ning told me about this earlier. I"m really happy for Xiao Duan. She was finally able to free herself.

Seeing that she was really was happy for Xiao Duan, I couldn"t help asking Princ.i.p.al Zhang: I think you are a good person and a responsible teacher, so how can you think all the students in the cla.s.s are your fault?

After a moment"s silence, Princ.i.p.al Zhang said: I failed in my duty.

I graduated at the age of 23 and became a public school teacher. I always treated educating as my duty. I always thought that I was earnest and responsible, that I did right by each student. Until one day I was attending Li Yuanyuan"s funeral. She was a student I had taught in my thirties. At that time I finally understood I had failed to discover the waves below the calm surface.

Li Yuanyuan... Before, Teacher Liu had said that she"d gone back to her hometown to find a job. I had always thought there would be an opportunity for us to meet in the future. Now it seemed I"d already missed the chance to see her for the last time.

That business made a lot of noise at the time. Li Yuanyuan died while being bullied by a former student, and that student was sentenced to prison. I only then found out that such a thing had happened in my cla.s.s. Back then, when Li Yuanyuan told me that that student had written on her back, I"d taken it as children playing and thought that with some scolding they would be able to resolve it themselves. But instead, because Li Yuanyuan had told me, it intensified the conflict and led to her being bullied even more. If I had paid more attention at the time, the later tragedy wouldn"t have happened.

After the incident with Li Yuanyuan, I began to investigate the internal conflicts among the students of Benevolence Middle School. Then I found out that many things had happened in my jurisdiction. Except for Duan Youlian, most of these students had come to grief after graduating or dropping out of school, but that didn"t lessen my responsibility.

But they were already dead, and I didn"t know what remedy there could be. That was when Teacher Liu appeared. He said that he could help me realize my wish, without breaking the law. I could tell him whoever I wanted to kill. I said that if there really were ghosts, I wanted to find my students, and use my own life to find a remedy for them.

Teacher Liu helped me find the students in H City. After I knew what they had done, I disbanded the school, which had a bad reputation anyway. In exchange for my lifespan, I asked Teacher Liu to trap them in the school.

My lifespan could only do so much. I had no way to grant them true relief. So I found the phone number of the Maoshan Sect online and asked them to help me.

I didn"t expect that when I made the posting online, by some miracle it would be seen by you, a newly graduated political teacher.

Then came everything I had encountered. When Princ.i.p.al Zhang had seen that I"d subdued Mr. Saw, she"d decided to let the mistake stand and see how far I could go.

Teacher Liu told me that the students don"t want to be ghosts anymore because of your tests. I will arrange for another cla.s.s tomorrow. You and Ning-tianshi can go; you should be able to bring everything to a conclusion. I will transfer the money originally prepared for the Maoshan Sect to you. I only have another three or four days left of my lifespan. Any later and I won"t be able to send the money.

After reading this message, my heart gave a tug, and Xiao Ning, lying on my lap, cried, "Ow, ow! Teacher Shen, don"t pull my hair."

Oh, I"d forgotten I was touching Xiao Ning"s hair. Xiao Ning"s hair was very good, black and straight. I couldn"t tear it all out or I"d be very upset.

Xiao Ning finally sat up. While helping me ma.s.sage my legs, which had gone numb, he asked, "Are you unhappy?"

I nodded, put my head on Xiao Ning"s shoulder, and said sadly, "I"m going to lose my job."

I handed Xiao Ning my phone and showed him the message from Princ.i.p.al Zhang.

Actually I didn"t know if I was upset because of losing my job, or sad that Princ.i.p.al Zhang"s lifespan was coming to an end. Anyway my heart felt blocked up.

"Last night in the hospital, I saw Princ.i.p.al Zhang"s countenance," said Xiao Ning. "She is a person who has acc.u.mulated a lot of merit. Originally she should have lived another thirty or forty years."

"She"s a good teacher and a good princ.i.p.al," I said dully.

"Don"t be sad now. Try to lift your spirits," Xiao Ning comforted me. "Tomorrow we"ll attend the last cla.s.s and strive to make all the students graduate!"